In June 1936, over 100 members of the U.S. Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) from colleges in California, Washington, and Utah arrived at Fort Worden in Port Townsend for training. Among the cadets was John Chew Young (1912-1987), a Chinese-American student from San Jose, California, arriving for his second consecutive summer of training at the US Army base. A student in the ROTC program at Stanford University, John Young received his 2nd lieutenant’s commission while at Fort Worden in 1936. At the outbreak of WWII, Young was commissioned into the US Army and served for two and a half years in the China Burma India Theater. Young retired from the U.S. Army Reserves as a Full Colonel in 1972.

During the two summers he trained at Fort Worden, John Young was the only cadet of color in his entire company. Though he had been at Stanford University for several years as an undergraduate and graduate student, the summers he spent at Fort Worden were the first time Young was allowed to bunk with his white peers. At Stanford, school policy prohibited students of Chinese descent from living in the dorms. John Young loved Stanford but was excluded from campus housing during his years there, regardless of the fact that he was born in California, and was in the U.S. Army ROTC program on campus. According to his son, Al Young of Seattle, his treatment by the U.S. Army at Fort Worden was much more inclusive.

This photo show John C. Young posing on the grounds of Fort Worden in the dress uniform of a fully commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army.

Caption information source: Email exchanges with John Young’s son, Al Young, January-February 2021.
Caption information source: R.O.T.C. Practices at Fort Worden, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 19, 1936, p. 4